


May We Stay Lost On Our Way Home

by Erinwolf1997



Category: fun.
Genre: Adventure, Autumn, Being Lost, Cold Weather, Creepy, Erinate, F/M, Fan Adventure, Fan Characters, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Ghost Town, Late at Night, Naterin, Spooky, Sweet, Walking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2018-02-14 23:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2206785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erinwolf1997/pseuds/Erinwolf1997
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erin just missed her train home, and totally lost, stumbles upon Nate Ruess. She suggests they try and find her home together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May We Stay Lost On Our Way Home

         The train's whistle faded and my heat raced like a horse on the track. Between pounding breaths and shaking legs, I weakly coughed into my sleeve. My steel colored faux fur vest tickled my chin. My quickened breaths clouded white and frosty in front of me. In mid-October, I could tell this winter was going to be a cold one.   
    The whistle roared again in the far distance. I scowled, turning around to go find a place to sit. I sat carefully, disappointed in myself that I had missed the train. The tracks sat in front of me, like a pathway to where I was supposed to be.  
    I rubbed my hands together, which had been chilled from the fresh, clean, post-rainfall air. If I walk now, I could probably make it home by dinner, I thought. The looming clock face above the station read 2:50. My home was 3 miles away.  
    I stood up, slightly mystified when I saw I was the only one next to the tracks. Had they all gone home already? They must've taken the opportunity by the reins and gotten to the station early. Their souls were now long gone to the rumble of the tracks and the hiss of the engine.  
    I walked towards the nearest street. There weren't any people out at all, as if this suburban pinpoint of a town's only inhabitants were ghosts. The poles of the unlit street lamps were much taller than me, and I assumed much colder than my hands.   
    I looked up towards the sun. It was making its final stretch home just like I was. The town seemed lonely and the street signs were an uncomfortable shade of emerald green, one that was both naive and arrogant.  
    I started my slow journey south, kicking the vermillion leaves as they passed with the lazy wind. I passed streets with odd names: Carmelia, Manchie, Troughbard. Each sign and each charming but desolate street confused me even more. In an hour's time, I was pleading, praying, for some, any sight of human life.   
    I heard far-off footsteps before I could see amidst the chilly autumn haze. Happy to know someone was alive here other than me, I glued my gaze to the pavement and appeared to be in a hurry. However, as we passed without even a hint of recognition, I noticed this stranger's shoes. A nuclear bomb went of in my head. Nobody wears boat shoes at this temperature. Wait, but he does. I stopped, my feet scuffing the ground a few feet away from him.  
    "Nate!" I said louder than necessary in the vacant street. I could have whispered and he would have heard me. He stopped, turned his head around, and cast back at me a wary but interested look. I skipped up to him.  
    "Hello." He had a sheepish smile and looked a bit confused, as if wondering if he knew me or if I just chose a name at random and it just happened to be his.   
    "Oh, I'm," I paused, "I'm a fan."  
    His smile grew and I noticed he was carrying some sort of bag, like one a postman would carry. He now faced me, shy, but his smile was, at the core, grateful. He chuckled.  
    "That's great to hear," he sputtered in an awkward mess. He wore a smile like me, once you put it on it's almost impossible to wipe it away.  
    "Hey, uh, what are you doing?" I asked, referring to this odd town and the odd task he seemed to be carrying out.   
    He paused briefly, looking at the ground.  
    "I deliver letters now," acting as if his music career was some sort of sham, "but just for the winter. In a couple of months, I'm back on the road."   
    I could tell he thought of this job as a bore. He would glance at the ground while speaking, appearing tired, nervous, and unfulfilled.  
    I forced myself to ask before he went on his way.  
    "I missed my train and I don't know this town. Would you be able to help me?" The words came out in a hurry, and I stared at his shoes.  
    He smiled, but then looked confused. He, too, stared at his feet.  
    "I'd love to, but I only know the next couple blocks," he glanced in the direction he had been previously walking from. "...but on a night like this, I'd kill for some company."  
    It was late enough that the shadows had passed, retreating to the night like rabbits to their warrens. The sky was monotone and ominous with the lurking depression of winter just around the corner.  
    "That's alright," I spoke in a hush. "We'll just keep on walking 'til I find my way home."  
    He still had an uneasy look on his face.  
    "Nate," I understood. "If you need to, you can stay at my place. I have room." I didn't sat anything more.  
    As the suburbs died even though they had never lived, his smile lit up the street lights. They cast an old and haunting glow over the streets. I reached out for his hand, which he had wrapped around his side as a futile attempt to stay warm.   
    Thanks," he muttered, visually shy. I pulled him closer; there was no wind, but the chill was picking up faster than the sun was setting.  
    He was shivering, and as the kind of person who couldn't watch others suffer, I took one arm out of my vest and wrapped it around him. He took it and placed his arm in it, stretching the faux fur what I felt was a little more than it could handle. His shaking subsided as we understood the silence and watched the rest of the streetlights turn on, off-tempo.  
    I sighed, bringing much-needed life to the seemingly dead world.  
    "We'd best be on our way," he said. "I have a couple more houses left to hit tonight."  
    Our breath fogged in the twilight air. It was like little clouds, little thunderstorms from our lungs and our voices.

     He took a step forward, and I had no choice but to follow, connected by warmth and the conscious choice that we were alive.  
    The loudest sound was the soles of our shoes hitting the concrete. I glanced to the left side of the street, and made a disgruntled noise.  
    He asked me what was wrong.   
    We were like two strangers who had immediately fallen in love. Not by anything we said, but something like the look in one's eyes or the omnipresence of a smile. In fact, we were this and nothing more.  
    I came back to his question.  
    "I'm just scared," came my weak answer. I forced my stare away from the empty, dark houses. "Things like this give me the creeps."  
    "There's nothing to be afraid of. There's nothing there." He said this as if he meant it for me, but I could tell he was reassuring himself as well.  
    Our footsteps synched up to overthrow the emptiness lurking about. The darkness between the streetlights was where it was the worst. Our pace would quicken, and he'd press up against me so close I could feel his pulse, beating like a horror movie victim's. It was almost like Halloween, only it wasn't supposed to be spooky and nobody was home.  
    "Here," he said, a little bit worried, a little bit hopeful. "138 Troughbard Lane."  
    He gazed in mourning at the weathered letter in his hand, as if it was the only thing he had left. The incandescent glow cast upon his face contrasted with his wintry eyes.  
    " _Come with me_." It was almost a question, but more of an innocent request, like a child asking for the nightlight to be turned on.  
    I wrapped the other half of my best around him once more. I moved forward with him, without an answer.  
    The front yard reeked of regret, patches of crabgrass littered what I dreamed was once a picturesque lawn. The pathway had cracks up and down its length and the house was painted an eerie marble gray. There were no lights on in the house.   
    As we reached the doorstep, he was shivering, even while wrapped in my warm vest and his chestnut leather jacket.   
    He prodded the mail slot on the door with the letter. It budged and creaked, and its brass finish caught the reflection of one of the streetlights. We were both as silent as stones.  
    After the letter was in and fell lifelessly to the floor, he grabbed my arm, still a little shaky, and rushed me back onto the street.  
    "Please," I breathed, shaking uneasily, "let this be the last letter for the neighborhood."  
    He stopped, glanced about, and stood in the street. He took his bag of letters off his shoulder and tossed it to the ground. I wanted to speak, but hesitated.   
    "No, but we can make it."   
    He grinned and pulled a box of matches out of his pocket. I placed my arm back in my vest. In one skilled movement, the match was ablaze, a microscopic sun in our bubble of night. He flicked it onto the bag.  
    We watched the fire rest at the fabric of the bag, and then consume every memory, love letter, and photograph inside. Among the wisps of ashy smoke, he laughed and grabbed my hand. We ran, southbound, until his fire was no longer in sight.  
    "Glad to get out of this hell-hole," he turned to me as we ran. The smile on his face almost rivaled his rebellious feat. The charred match went down like a fallen hero and I couldn't help but feel pity for it.  
    The acres of desolation began to disappear as we ran. Happier houses replaced the depressing ones that looked like they got their decor from a movie in the '20s.   
    It was glorious yet gloomy, to be free but also so lost. I pulled him aside and we recovered from our escape. Our breathing was fast and fed by the paranoid adrenaline pulsing through our veins. I felt dizzy and stared at the gray cement beneath me with my hands on my knees.  
    He put his hand on my back.  
    "Good job," he whispered among much-needed breaths. "I've never met a girl who'd let me burn a bunch of other people's mail before."  
    I smiled, and we looked up. A quarter of a moon sat squarely right above the horizon. It appeared as if it were watching us. Further in the distance were fragrant woods. Judging by the smell and the bark littering the ground, they must have been eucalyptus.  
    I breathed a sigh of relief. Life. There was life here besides the two of us.   
    Marmalade lighting shone between the trees, coming from lamp posts stationed along a windy paved road.   
    "Must be a big park," he said. The shadows of the treetops stretched far beyond our eyesight. They were as dark in the sky as storm clouds at dusk.  
    I stood, closed my eyes, and breathed in the sticky, fragrant air, full of eucalyptus sap. Shifting my weight caused a billion fibers of the forest floor to crackle like flames.   
    "C'mon," he beckoned forward, "there must be someone here."   
    I could tell from his serendipitous smile that he would be happy the entire night if we just stayed here and never found anyone at all.  
    He trudged on forward, and gestured for me to follow. Our footsteps created a calamitous woodland symphony.  
    Sheltered by the trees, a wind began to pick up above the canopy. It was slow at first, but I began to feel its nip through my vest. We returned to the intimate vest sharing to stay warm.  
    I shivered and looked up, noticing how the trees produced a classic silhouette, even at night.   
    I then noticed something in the distance. I pointed it out in a whisper, as if I would wake something up if I were to speak louder.  
    "I think that's a sign."  
    He sighed in relief, and we walked a bit quicker, eager to see what it had to say.   
    Up close, the sign was unremarkable, spiderwebs and dust camped in the corners. But for us, it was a bright light of direction.   
    "North," I pointed in the direction the sign stated, the way we had come, "is Paradise." It shocked me that a place so dull could have such a charming name.   
    "Hm. So that's what it's called. I never read past the street address," he added, and paused. "And where are we going to?" He stared at the map.   
    "North Star," I answered.   
    "Here," he touched the sign, and traced a dusty arrow pointing east. I followed the path with my eyes.  
    Nate laughed, as if he had finally gotten a joke.  
    "Paradise is no fucking paradise and to get to North Star we had to walk south."   
    "The north is always south to someone." I chucked, and we dropped the conversation with a humorous sigh.  
    "C'mon." I grabbed his arm and turned to face the road leading us east. Home. I groaned when I saw the next streetlight wasn't for about a hundred yards, but we put one foot in front of the other.   
    The night was still cold and had a mysterious, feel to it. Almost like when you're camping and Lord knows what's beyond the light of your campfire.   
    I breathed in the relaxing, cold air. The spaces between the lights, were much more pleasant than back in Paradise.  
    "Don't fall," I told him, "you never know what could be beyond the side of the road." I glanced, nervous, off into the void darkness. It didn't matter whether there lay monsters or a helping hand, I didn't care much to encounter either.  
    Our pulses were much slower now. The presence of the trees and the natural absence of human life was relaxing, and I felt reassured that this truly was the way home.  
    He pulled me closer in our shared vest when we reached the next crossroad. The lighting was much more pure and the forest less dense.   
    "Over there." I pointed to a sign across the cold road.  
    The glass protecting the rather ancient looking map was grimy; I could barely make out the shimmering gold star sticker stating  _you are here_.  
    "There's Paradise," Nate said, finger on the dusty glass mere inches from our current location.  
    "And here's North Star," I said. It was a little less than the distance from Paradise. The labels ran blue, as if drenched from some past storm.   
    "So we'll continue..." He said, glancing about the crossroad.  
    To our contentment, the road was now well-lit. The streetlights ran down the road in single-file. If not for the natural curve of the path, it would have looked perfectly picturesque in a photographer's mind.  
    We walked again, footsteps on the cement like raindrops on a tin roof. Our frosted breaths evaporated into the dark, dead cold.  
    Signs would, on occasion, sneak up in front of us with promise, but we were disappointed when we got close enough to read. Usually it was something as little as the risk of forest fires, or the mouthful name of a nearby campground.  
    Finally, a few minutes into our home bound stretch, we found a sign that foretold of home.  
    "North Star. Turn Right."  
    The forest had thinned and things seemed to look more familiar, though maybe it was just the promise of an end to this seemingly endless journey.  
    The lights were so pure and the concrete was young and dark. It was almost too technologically advanced to my long-lost eyes. The strange luminescence had zero tint to it, as bright and god-like as pure, angelic light. It illuminated his eyes; they were now cold, dusty sapphires in this adventurous but familiar world.   
     _Oh, thank you!_  I thought, I could see it in the distance. Miniature floodlights lit up the city's sign that I had seen so many times before. Driving out of town to get groceries as a child. Biking past it on the way to school. And of course, seeing it flash by like lightning earlier this morning. That moment felt as far away as a good sleep; it felt as if I hadn't even been conscious this entire day.  
    "So this is it?" Nate asked. I remembered he was with me and broke out of my trance.  
    "Yep," I said, almost out of breath in wonder, and stared at the sign, "I know where we are."  
    "So no more being lost together..." It was late; no cars were on the street. I wish there was as much as a passing bicyclist to break the silence following.  
    "It was kinda fun-"  
    "It wouldn't be too bad-"  
    Almost exactly at the same time. We spoke simultaneously again, inaudible words, and I let him finish.   
    "So you liked it too?" His smile sparkled in the late-night lighting.  
    "That forest was beautiful. That town was creepy as hell. I think the train should have left me behind like it did."  
    He grinned and nodded.   
    I didn't even recall even seeing anyone on the train. A chill tracked down my spine, from the cold and the mystery of that town of abandonment.  
    He shook with a chill as well and huddled closer to me under the much-appreciated vest. I was so close to home and it surprised me.  
    I took a step and led us away from the friendly light of the North Star sign. The night was quiet but at least there was evidence of humans. A lone grey car turned a corner into a neighborhood in the distance. A light was on inside a house and I saw movement inside. A dog emitted a lonely, distressed howl a few blocks away. It was the most alien and melancholy sound I'd heard in a while.   
    "Where are we going to?" came from the other half of the fur vest.   
    "11 Cherry Court. I can sleep on the couch if-"  
    "No, I'm the guest."  
    "Are you sure? You don't have to be sweet if you want a nice place to sleep."  
    He insisted.  
    My nose was cold and half of the hairs on my body were on-end. The whiter, brighter streetlights reminded me of the summertime. We walked up my street without a word. Just like those summer nights when you couldn't care less about where you'd be in the morning. I turned the key in the lock, Nate waiting almost patiently behind me; my legs ached and we'd been walking all night. Those nights when you believed that anything could happen. I almost collapsed on the couch in the living room; he followed me with a drowsy gait, the door half-closed. Sometime's you'd have fireworks, ice cream, you'd go on long walks after dark. I drifted into sleep with the chilly air biting me but a head on my shoulder to warm me up. Nights when you cared enough to stay lost on your way home.

**Author's Note:**

> I got the prompt for this fic from a fiction prompt generator. The prompt was: "The story starts when your protagonist misses her train.  
> Another character is a letter carrier who is your protagonist's favorite musician."  
> I guess I just got lucky because this turned out nicer than I imagined.


End file.
